From: Eric May [captainmay@prodigy.net]
Sent: 12 November 2004 06:59
To: selan@thejournalnews.com
Cc: matt@mattengelman.com
Subject: The draft, Mr. Hedges & your fine article

Dear Ms. Elan, I'm a former military officer (specialties in intelligence and public affairs) who has been writing about the return of the draft for two years now.  My prediction, like Mr. Hedges' is that such an action will be part of the president's self-assumed "mandate" from the election results.  The draft, of course, will require a reorientation of the political paradigm..., which means that another 911 would be most helpful, would it not?  You know what?  I find that whatever would be helpful to King George and the NeoCon War Cabal tends to "happen" most conveniently.  God must be a Republican, because on 911 he gave the NeoCons exactly the kind of "Pearl Harbor" they had been praying for.  I'd imagine they're praying for another event -- perhaps a bit bigger and better -- to rrefocus the now-unfocused public toward the necessity of fighting a war for Oil and Israel.

Anyhow, here's my essay about the return to the draft, written for a conscientious editor in the education field who thought that high school teachers might do well to know what GWB has in store for their high school students.  The link: 

http://www.educationnews.org/post-election-draft.htm

I am pleased to see that the anti-war is joining the infowar (what we in the counter-media are calling our attempts to get the news out around the mainstream mediawhores).  I believe that a too-credulous belief in Kerry had them muzzled, and frequently heard in many quarters that Kerry really didn't mean it when he continuously said that he was going to out-Bush Bush himself by vigorously waging war on Iraq.  He meant it.

To close with an introduction for you to explore another reason we're going to have the draft, I invite you to read an article I published in Al-Jazeerah.info (picked up afterwards by Rense.com) about the matter of media cover-ups of US military casualties.  I'd bet that you've become aware of the recent revelation that our "benign" estimates of 10,000 - 20,000 Iraqi civilian dead was well short of a reputable estimate by the Lancet of 100,000 dead.  Well, the US military deaths have been similarly underreported -- and men like Christopher Hedges are well aware of it, but too frightened of potential professional or even personal consequences to report it.  My article deals with the first major cover-up of the war:  the Battle of Baghdad Cover-up (BOBCUP).  As most of the mainstreamers know by now (and are keeping under wraps for Bush et al.), we didn't just waltz into Baghdad in April, 2003, so lazily that the only news worth broadcasting in our first days there was the wounded/rescued Private Jessica Lynch.  The fact is that hundreds of US soldiers and marines were killed in a three-day battle against thousands of prepared resistance fighters.  I picked it up at the time from mainstreamers (remember, I was intelligence and public affairs, and knew how to pick through a cover-up in progress).  The mainstreamers didn't admit the Battle of Baghdad Cover-up until June 29, 2004 (15 months late), when MSNBC gave a faint acknowledgement in an interview between Andrea Mitchell and David Zucchino (LA Times, embedded w/ the 3rd Infantry Division at the outset of the war).  Zucchino knew what had gone down, and put it out in sanitized, but solid, form.  The article I wrote is at http://www.rense.com/general57/ababat2.htm

Finally, should you wish to take a look at my media/military background or, more importantly, just how extensive the mainstream manipulation of the public has been, I hope you'll turn to my "Ghost Troop" report at www.geocities.com/onlythecaptain/ .  It has received a good deal of acclaim from some of my former media colleagues who didn't have the nerve to write it themselves.  Finally, if you want to read my online book (I have a European editor who feels secure enough to publish it for me -- he's in the cc's), please go to www.ghosttroop.net.  The book details the media/military/political channels that I, a person with rich media/military/political references, reached out to -- all without result, since none of the institutions responsible to the public are willing to talk truth to the public in the face of power.

I realize that all this is a bit much to put forth, but, as Mr. Hedges said (I think none-too-subtly), there is a distinct need for a draft, soon.  When he said that we were losing the war he was telling half the story; the other half of the story is that we have lost far too many troops to easily replace them through more-and-more hesitant volunteers.  The truth of things can't really come out, or it would mean the toppling of the powers that be for deceiving the public (even about 911), and that means those powers, currently led by King George, must be praying that the next "terror" event will happen quickly, giving the Republican Reich even more power to suppress dissent and alternative information sources, and plenty of excuse for a full mobilization.

Them's my sentiments -- and the sum of my common sense.

Thanks for publishing articles like the one about Mr. Hedges.  I think you can see the writing on the wall:  The time for hedging about things is gone.

Best regards, Eric H. May

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